The Long Way Round
by the-empire-falls
Summary: All Naomi wants is to get home, but being stuck in Scotland in the middle of a blizzard makes it difficult. Maybe Emily, another stranded traveller, can help. AU/Future
1. Chapter 1

**Okay so I had the idea for this story today and I couldn't resist starting it. If you guys like it I'll make it my new project for once ive finished my other story :D**

At this point, I'm breaching the kind of desperation level that makes my want to tear all of my clothes off and run around warning people of the imminent apocalypse. In fact, the only thing that's stopping me doing just that is the tiny, and ever-slimming, prospect that I might be home in a few hours.

But the snow isn't stopping. It's just getting thicker and thicker outside until the dark sky turns into this thick suffocating swirl that no one can escape from. It's entirely blanketed the runways, grounding the planes so they look strange and immobile, not capable of the earth shattering heights and speeds that could get me home. Tiny ploughs scurry across the asphalt, carving thin and insignificant etchings across the ground that are immediately erased by more falling snow. At least they look tiny from up here. I mean, of course I'm at the bar. My plane's been delayed for six hours and there's only so much Edinburgh airport has to offer. I've already sprayed on all the perfume samples from the cosmetics stores and now I smell like someone's eccentric grandmother.

I sigh and glance at the clock above the bar. It's nearly eleven pm now. It's too late to book a room if they cancel this flight ... which I just _know_ they're going to. I'm not that lucky. I look around at the people at the bar. Business men mostly, staring into their drinks like they're fascinating, pretending they're anywhere else but stuck here exactly a week before Christmas.

But there's a girl staring at me. She has been for about an hour. I know because I watched her walk in and sit down directly beneath the big clock. Straight red hair and deep brown eyes, small hand clutched round a corona bottle. She looks sad.

Deep brown sad.

I must've been staring right back at her because she flashes a little smile and does a dorky little wave. I nod a sort of acknowledgment to her and look down at my drink. It's empty. But she must take my gesture as some kind of hint because now she's hopping down off her bar stool and walking over to me.

'Can I get you another?' she asks me in a smoky voice I wasn't expecting.

'Um ...' I look her up and down. She's quite short, but perfectly proportioned. Everything she has is small. Small nose, little upturned mouth, dainty hands: everything in miniature except for those big brown eyes. 'Sure.' I answer. 'Why not?'

'What are you drinking?' she asks me.

'Rum and coke,' I answer. 'Because I'm in such an exotic place.'

She stares at my mouth as I talk. 'Yeah,' she agrees, 'I keep thinking I should drink whiskey seeing as I'm in like, its homeland. But I just can't stand it.'

I smile back at her, 'Careful, such outlandish whiskey-bashing could get you in trouble round these parts.'

'Well I like to take risks,' she says, a hint of seriousness in her voice. 'I'm Emily by the way,' she tells me, offering me one of those small hands to shake.

'Naomi,' I answer back, gripping the hand briefly. It's soft and warm, contrasting sharply to the cold glass in my other hand.

I watch her as she leans over the bar to get the barman's attention. The material of her top slides up her back slightly, exposing a patch of bare skin just above her skirt. I don't even know why I'm looking. It's just nice to have something else to focus on that isn't snow which, when you think about it, is just cold and white.

'So where are you flying to?' she turns back round and asks me, her gaze flicking between my eyes and lips.

'Bristol,' I answer, suitably unenthusiastically.

'No way,' she say excitedly, 'Me too! My sister lives there. I'm spending Christmas with her.'

'Nice,' I say, not informed enough to give any further comment.

'Stressful more like,' she corrects me. 'My sister is a little ... um, overbearing? And she's insisted that the _whole_ family come to her house. Including my parents. So I have to see my Mum as well.'

'And you don't want to?' I guess.

'Not really,' she answers. She looks deep in thought for a moment, before she shakes her head and looks at me. 'What about you? Home for Christmas?'

I nod. 'Yup. Just a cosy little family Christmas for me. Just me, my Mum and the twenty complete strangers that live in my house.'

Emily gives me a confused but intrigued look.

'My Mum believes in this weird communal living thing,' I explain. 'Don't ask.'

Emily's eyebrows shoot up. 'Okay,' she agrees. 'But I know what it's like to have no personal space. My sister? She's my twin. And we shared a room right up until I left home.'

I cock my head to one side at look at Emily again. So she's a twin. That's quite intriguing. I wonder if she's an identical twin, or one of those one's that you find yourself saying 'no way are you twins' to.

'Stop it,' she says suddenly.

I frown. 'Stop what?'

'Stop imagining what my sister looks like.'

'I'm not,' I lie.

She squints at me, but lets it drop. I'm beginning to think this girl might be a bit strange. I take an ever closer look at her, examining her clothes, her bag, her shoes, and her hands again. I feel like I'm picking up clues, but I can't quite put them together.

'So are you travelling alone or are you with someone?' she asks, tucking some hair behind a little elfin ear. 'Boyfriend? Girlfriend?'

And that's when the alarm bell starts sounding in my head. She's gay. Not that that's a problem. I mean, attraction is genderless, right? What concerns me is the way she keeps staring at my mouth. It suggests to me that she bought me a drink for a reason. And that's just not going to happen. Genderless attraction aside, I like men.

'Um ... no. I'm travelling alone,' I say, deciding to wrap this conversation up before Emily gets any ideas.

'Well, maybe we could travel together,' she suggests. '... because I'm alone too.'

I chew my bottom lip. 'Yeah ... Emily, I kind of like travelling alone,' I tell her.

Her entire face just falls, as if it was all held together with hope. I feel bad, I do. But I can't go around giving false impressions.

'Okay,' she says with a shrug.

There's a prolonged silence during which I choose to down my drink. 'Right, well. It was nice to meet you Emily,' I say as I stand up. 'Thanks for the drink,' I add as her sad eyes watch me go.

I wander around the departure lounge for a while feeling like a bitch, but I swallow down the feeling. I observe all the disheartened people in the airport. Some have already given up hope and are lying out horizontally on the floor or across chairs, using their bags as pillows and their coats as duvets. Looks like a perfect recipe for chronic neck pain to me.

I park myself directly underneath the departure board and stare up at the long list of delayed flights. I cross my fingers within the confines of my jacket sleeves and pray that somehow I'll be leaving this airport tonight.

My hopes are expertly dashed by a crackly voice on a tannoy:

'Flight 2605 to Bristol airport has been cancelled. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. Please stand by for further announcements.'

'Fuck!' I put both hands to my head and screw my eyes closed. The airport has suddenly erupted with the accumulative noise of hundreds of inconvenienced passengers. I open my eyes and chew my bottom lip, my mind racing through possibilities of what I could possibly do now, though all I can come up with are two options: stay the night on the departure lounge floor and hope that something is leaving the airport in the morning, or pay through the a-hole for a hotel room at short notice a week before Christmas, bearing in mind that over a hundred people will already be steadily booking up every available space in the area. I sigh. And as I swing around to get a better look at what other people are doing, I see Emily.

She's stood next to a drinks machine, eyes fixed unashamedly on me. She motions that I come over to her. Having literally no idea what to do, it's kind of reassuring to be with someone who's in the same predicament. It makes me feel less alone. Less lonely. Which, if I just cast my mind back a few minutes, was exactly what Emily had suggested in the first place.

'Have you got a place to stay?' she asks me the second I get near her.

I shake my head. 'I was counting on that plane leaving tonight,' I tell her.

'My mate owns a B and B not far from here,' she tells me. Her tone is less friendly than it was at the bar. 'He can put us up for the night at a discount rate. You interested?'

I frown. Trusting a complete stranger with my sleeping arrangements probably isn't the wisest of things to do, but I've been in this airport for nearly an entire day now. I feel like I'll explode if I don't leave soon. I feel trapped.

So I nod. 'Yeah, that would be good. Thanks.'

Emily smiles like she did at the bar. It makes me nervous.

'Follow me then,' she says.

And I do.

**So what do you think? Worth continuing?**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you! Here's another :D**

So it turns out that Emily was understating when she said her mate's B and B wasn't far away. It is, in fact, a thirty-fucking-quid cab ride away, along really really windy roads in the pitch dark, in the snow, with a very unsettling looking cab driver who asked for cash up front instead of putting it on the meter. So I'm really not very impressed right now. I'm pretty sure that I'm radiating some kind of pissed-off energy through my skin because Emily has kept very quiet the entire way, only chancing her little smile at me twice, which I frown away each time.

'How much longer?' I ask the driver again.

'Not too much further now babe,' he tells me.

'Excuse me? I'm _not _a babe,' I correct the slimy idiot who just ignores me and just turns his generic late-seventies rock music up, flashing me a toothy smile in the rear-view mirror. I sigh and lean my head against the cold glass of the window and wonder what on earth I'm doing here. The cab smells like stale cigarettes and the distinctive aroma of burning clutch.

I sniff harder. That clutch smells really unhealthy actually.

My fears are confirmed when the car shudders to a sudden, violent halt and I find myself flung forward and snapped back by a temperamental seat-belt. I feel Emily's hand on my shoulder.

'Are you okay?' she asks me, her red hair falling about her face as she looks me, eyes scanning my body for signs of discomfort.

'I'm fine,' I say, not removing her hand because it calms me for a second. I have this really brief reassuring feeling that it's okay to be completely stranded because _someone_ cares what happens to me. I look into her deep brown eyes for a moment, almost starting to smile, before I change my mind and shrug her hand from me. Suddenly the reassuring feeling is replaced by something else. Something worse. And I don't care for it.

Meanwhile, the driver is busy hunched over the steering wheel, shoving and twisting his keys repeatedly in the ignition, conjoining swear words in ways that my college politics teacher would be proud of, and the car is grumbling disagreeably as it shudders and shakes, making my stomach rattle around inside me.

Emily's eyes leave mine and she turns her anxious gaze to the struggling driver. I get this sinking feeling that makes me wish I had stayed at the airport. The driver utters one final string of curse words before her heaves himself up out of his seat, banging the door shut behind him once he's outside so hard that it makes the car shake.

'What's he doing?' I ask Emily, as if she'd know. 'What are you doing?' I shout through the window and am promptly ignored. 'Fuck's _sake_!' I shout at no one in particular. I glance over at Emily who has retreated into herself, looking as guilty as I'd ever seen anyone look.

'I'm sorry,' she says quietly.

'Why?' I ask irritably. 'It's not your fucking fault is it?'

She shrugs and looks at her hands. 'Well it was my idea to get the cab. I guess you'd have rather stayed at the airport.'

I sigh. 'No ... don't worry.' I lie, thinking about the grounded planes I saw, wondering if any of them have managed to escape. Wondering who's sitting in my seat.

'Do you know how far away we are from your mates place?' I ask, trying to make out the shape of the landscape in the darkness outside.

'We can't be far,' she guesses, following my gaze outside. 'I mean, we've been going for what, thirty minutes?' She twists her lips from side to side in thought. 'Probably a twenty minute walk from here I reckon.'

I feel myself pull an unimpressed face. I unclip my seatbelt and open the car door. It's fucking freezing outside. I feel my entire body shrink up as it comes into contact with the icy air. 'Oi!' I call to the driver who is fumbling around somewhere beneath the bonnet of the car. 'What the fuck's going on?'

'She doesn't like the cold,' he tells me.

I roll my eyes. Men referring to their cars as female always seems so sad and pathetic. And also kind of gross. My feet crunch in the snow as I walk round the car to the front where he's stood. It's not soft, freshly fallen snow; it's snow that has fallen and been repeatedly iced over, making it cracked and brittle and unpleasant to walk on. I fold my arms and hug them around me, trying to keep the warmth within my own skin from escaping. I can just make out Emily watching me through the window. She's always watching me. Like I'm fascinating.

'Can you fix it?' I ask the driver, tearing my eyes away from Emily.

He slams the bonnet down and wipes his hands on a filthy rag. 'I need to call someone out,' he says. There's no apology. No offer of an alternative way of getting to my destination. Just his pointy greasy face and that filthy rag.

'How long will that take?' I ask him.

He screws up his face in thought. 'Midnight on Friday in a blizzard? A week from Christmas? ... hard to say. Over an hour at least.'

I hug myself even harder. 'I'm not waiting for a fucking hour,' I tell him.

'Well unless you fancy walking love, you're going to have to,' he reasons.

I clench my jaw, narrowing my eyes at the driver as a thin-lipped smile grows across his face. Exasperated, I stomp back round to the side of the car and wrench the back door open. 'We're leaving,' I tell Emily. 'Grab your stuff.'

Emily pulls a face like she wants to argue. I almost wish she would. I'm so pissed off right now I could do with a good fight. But instead she keeps quiet, pursing her lips as if to stop an argument from escaping. She scrabbles up from her seat and joins me outside.

'So we're walking then?' she asks me.

'Yeah. Twenty minutes you said right?'

'... give or take.'

'Give or take how much?' I demand impatiently.

'I don't fucking know do I?' she answers. It's the first time I've heard her swear. She looks annoyed at me. It makes me realise I'm pushing her. I'm pushing this helpful, quiet, eager to please girl that has done nothing but be nice to me since the moment I met her.

'Right ... well, let's go then,' I say, trying to soften my tone slightly.

She retrieves her bag from the trunk of the car and crunches towards me on the hard snow. Once she's stood next to me I start walking. Onwards down the strange country lane that twists and curls around the undulating landscape, coated in snow and hidden in darkness.

The beam from the taxi headlights is lost somewhere behind us as we traverse a sharp bend in the road. The night suddenly feels a lot colder. I clench my fists inside of my jackets sleeves to stop my finger tips from freezing and look over at Emily. Her head is down, her eyes focusing on the placement of each step on the treacherous ice.

We don't speak for a while. The only sound is of our feet compacting the ice beneath them.

'Why aren't there any fucking road signs?' I ask eventually, sick of the rhythmic sound of our synchronised footsteps. 'How do we know we're even on the right road?'

Emily looks up from the ground for a split second, but doesn't dignify my question with a response. Watching her more closely, I realise her shoulders are shaking significantly. And then I go on to realise that she doesn't have a jacket, just a thin zip-up jacket with a hood.

'Are you cold?' I ask.

'No,' she says.

I raise my eyebrows at her.

'... yes,' she agrees. 'I was trying not to think about it.'

'Would you like my jacket or something?' I ask, my tone suggesting I wasn't particularly keen on giving it up.

She looks like she wants to accept the offer, but shakes her head instead. 'No. You'll be cold.'

'I fucking hate snow,' I mutter.

'Really?' Emily asks me wide-eyed. 'I love it.'

I make a noise with my mouth to express my disagreement. 'Why? It's cold and wet and just fucks everything up.'

She looks deep in thought for a second. 'It's like ... well it's like nothing else is it?' she asks me.

I'm unsure if I'm meant to answer, so I keep quiet and wait to see if she continues.

'You know ... when it falls you feel these tiny little touches of ice ... like, bits of the sky or something. And it just covers everything. It makes people so confused. Like ... amazed and scared all at once, because suddenly it's light where it was dark and frozen still where it was running and cold where it was wet. I could stay out in it for days and never understand.'

I have no appropriate response, but it's okay because as she speaks of the snow she loves it begins to fall even heavier, thick and full and when I look above me all I can see is it swarming in the dark sky. It clings to Emily's hair and eyelashes, glinting like constellations of stars around her face.

I feel the sudden need to change the subject. Because as beautiful as everything Emily just said was, romanticising things is easy. Accepting realities is a lot harder.

'So this mate of yours,' I say, 'you know them from home?'

She nods. 'Yeah, he's Bristol born and bred like me.'

'What's he doing up here then?'

'He got into some trouble back home. Drugs and stuff. His Mum's some kind of famous artist and she has a studio in Edinburgh. It all went from there really.'

'What about you?' I ask, failing at resisting my urge to know more about this girl.

'I travel around,' she tells me.

I nod. 'Me too.'

The warm orange glow of artificial light smoulders in the distance, and my heart does a little flutter at the sight of it. My pace increases as I plough on towards it. The snow is thicker here, where we turn off the road into the car park in the front of the building. It looks more like a pub than a bed and breakfast, but at this point as long as it has a bed with a roof over it, I'll take just about anything.

We traipse up to the entrance and push through the front door, triggering a small bell at the top as it opens. In the reception room, the decor is distinctly seventies: fading floral carpets underfoot and dado rail running the length of the walls. Emily steps up to the front desk and taps a small service bell on the counter.

There's a loud clattering from the next room and a young man stumbles through a door towards the desk. His bright green eyes shine with recognition as he catches sight of Emily.

'Emilio man!' he howls, putting both hands on the counter and launching himself up and over it to land next to Emily and envelop her in a near-throttling hug. 'What the fuck are you doing in this shit-hole?' he asks letting go of her.

'Our flight home was cancelled. Can we stay here?' she asks, gesturing to me.

The boy looks me up and down. 'Nice ... nice, nice, nice,' he says appreciatively, 'romantic weekend in the country is it?' he asks, before thrusting his pelvis in demonstration.

I scoff and immediately open my mouth to defend myself, but Emily butts in.

'No we're ... um ... we're just friends Cook,' she says.

'Actually, we only met tonight,' I correct. 'Just need a place to sleep.'

Cook looks at Emily then at me with a stupid grin on his face. 'Whatever you say blondie.'

I roll my eyes, and catch Emily give Cook a warning stare.

'Well you know me Ems,' he says, 'never one to turn down a beautiful lady.' He turns and takes a key down from a hook on the wall. 'Last room in the house,' he says with a wink.

'I'm sorry ... room?' I ask. 'One room? Can't we have one each?'

'Sorry babes,' Cook says with a shrug, 'one week before Christmas in the beautiful shag-inducing Scottish countryside? Fully booked innit.' He gives me a pointed look. 'I mean, if you don't fancy sharing with Emily there's always room for one more with me ...' he waggles his eyebrows suggestively. 'What do you say babe? Fancy a night to remember with the Cookie monster?' He dangles the room key in front of my face and I snatch it off him.

'I'd rather staple my nipples to a high speed train than sleep with you thanks,' I tell him, at which he throws back his head in laughter.

'Too pushy to take a chance little girl,' he tells me.

I turn towards Emily angrily, and she flashes me an apologetic look. I storm past her and up the stairs to the room number specified on the tag of the key. I hear her following me. She waits next to me as I shove the key into the keyhole of room number 9 and wiggle it around until the barrel clicks open.

The door swings forward and we step into the room. It smells damp and musty and as I scan the fixtures and fittings I notice that there is only one bed. I look at Emily and then quickly back at the bed.

She does the same.

'Um ...' she says nervously.

I sigh and move further into the room, sitting down delicately on the corner of the bed. 'At least it's just one night,' I mutter, and Emily does a little nod.

'Sorry,' she says, again. 'And I'm sorry about Cook. He's a sort of ... walking erection.'

'I'd noticed,' I say as she walks over and perches on the opposite corner of the bed.

'All I care is that I can have a shower and go to sleep,' I admit.

'I don't snore,' she tells me suddenly.

'Finally things are looking up,' I joke. I look down at the bed, wondering which side Emily would normally sleep on. She's staring at me again, studying my reaction to everything. I stand up. 'I'm going to have a shower,' I announce.

She watches me retreat into the bathroom. I turn the light on, and as I close the door behind me I glance back into the room to see Emily pulling her cold and soaking jacking from her, the t-shirt beneath it tight and wet, straining around her chest.

My gaze lingers on her for a few seconds before I close the door behind me and lock it shut.


	3. Chapter 3

**I love all of your reviews you guys! Glad you didn't find the old 'only one bed' line too cheesy. Or if you did you were kind enough not to mention it :D I hope you like this chapter as well and maybe leave a little review to let me know?**

**(Coupla' things: xrisou - I love Scotland too! Such a beautiful country. Jealous of Naomily being stuck there! And ****Flister - why do you not have a ff account? Your stuff belongs on here!)**

When I get back from the shower Emily is already under the covers. My skin feels fresh and clean and I can't wait to feel the crisp sheets of the bed against it. The main light in the room is switched off, the small lamp next to Emily providing a dim yellowish glow which casts long shadows across the room. She's sat up in the bed, her knees brought up to her chest, fiddling with one of those phones that does everything. You know the ones: goes on the internet, takes videos, channels your life into an extensive range of commercial streams to the point where you can't function without it. They seem like a massive waste of technology to me, but then I can barely be bothered with my inferior mobile that performs the menial tasks of making phone calls and sending texts. I blame my mother entirely.

Emily looks up at me when I enter the room, her face half in shadow, the soft light making the bare skin of her shoulders and arms glow. I smile awkwardly and shuffle around by the bathroom door for a while.

'Aren't you getting in?' she asks me. Her voice seems lower in the small room.

I fiddle nervously with the drawstring of my pyjama bottoms before I walk over and pull the covers back. I'm presented with the view of Emily's bare legs as I do. She's stripped down to her underwear and a vest. I quickly get in and pull the covers over myself, shuffling down the bed and laying my head back on the pillow. I look at Emily and look away again.

'Sorry,' she says gesturing to her attire, 'I don't wear pyjamas. I can't sleep with much on.'

I swallow before answering, 'Don't worry. I usually sleep na – with ... er, not much on.'

She gives me a look that I can't quite describe before returning her attention to her phone.

'What are you doing?' I ask.

'Checking the airport updates,' she tells me, her finger running up and down the length of the touch screen. 'Nothing's leaving and the weather's set to get worse.'

I roll my eyes. 'Bloody typical,' I mutter.

She bites her lip and looks at me. I think about her bare legs.

'I was thinking,' she begins, 'we've both got places to get to ... it might be worth looking into other ways of getting there. Like ... together. Because we sure as hell ain't flying.'

I frown in thought. 'What do you suggest?' I ask.

'Trains? Taxis?' she offers off the bat.

I make a dismissive noise. 'If they can't get a plane full of jet fuel off the fucking ground the likelihood of the trains running is a bit ridiculous.'

She looks disappointed, but I continue.

'And as for taxis ... I think tonight's events are enough of an argument against that.'

She rolls her eyes, 'Jesus I don't know then, Naomi. A fucking tandem bike? I don't see you making any suggestions.' She's annoyed at me now. That's happened twice.

I look at her strangely, the little frown creasing her smooth forehead. For a second I almost feel like the quiet, meek Emily that I met at the airport is just a facade, and underneath the surface is a fiery, passionate Emily that occasionally breaks through.

I clear my throat. 'I'll think about it,' I say. 'We'll check the airport again in the morning. If there's a chance we can get a flight out I think we should take it.'

I see a flash of disappointment cross her face, but I ignore it. I travel alone.

'Okay, well. Whatever,' she says noncommittally. 'What time shall I set the alarm for?' she asks.

I suddenly get a warm feeling in my stomach. That reassuring warmth you get when you know someone's looking out for you, when two people are together so long that they start acting like one entity. It's strange. Emily watches my face expectantly with her finger poised over her phone.

'Um ...' I begin, trying to replace the warmth with indifference. I concentrate and it goes away. 'Seven am,' I tell her. 'I don't want to be stuck her all day,' I add frostily.

She doesn't answer. She taps her phone a few times then leans over to switch the lamp off. With a click the room goes dark. I feel her shimmy down the bed next to me. Her bare leg brushes up against mine and my eyes are wide in the dark.

She turns over to face away from me. The blankets are pulled across me as the majority are taken over to her side. I let my head fall to the side to look at her and notice how close she is to me. I can smell her hair, which is sprawling darkly across the white pillow. She shuffles a fraction closer to me so that her back almost flush with my side. Warmth radiates through her skin to mine. I let out a shaky breath and try to quiet my racing mind. I close my eyes, inhaling the scent of Emily's hair, listening to the soft sound of her slow breath, quietly absorbing the heat from her body.

I fall asleep.

* * *

When I wake up something's changed. The room is cold and quiet, bigger than it was when I went to sleep. I look to the side, unconsciously reaching out to the other side of the bed, finding it cold and empty. I sit up, panicked and confused for a moment before the previous day comes rushing back to me. I run a hand through my hair, my rational mind steadily calming me down. I look down at the empty space next to me and wonder where Emily has gone. A cold fear slices through me as thoughts of abandonment parade with ill-deserved confidence through my head.

'Fuck's sake,' I tell myself, swinging my legs round off the bed to the floor and standing up. The old carpet feels hard and scratchy beneath my bare feet. I pad over to the bathroom and flick the light on. I stare hard at my reflection in the mirror above the sink. My eyes look small and sharp. I sigh, irritated with myself for trusting someone so much with absolutely no proof they were trustworthy. I knew I travelled alone for a reason.

I hear a muffled noise coming from somewhere outside the bathroom, and I practically leap back into the bedroom. It's still dark and empty, and I realise the noise is coming from outside the window. I walk over to it and pull back the net curtain and squint out into the dark countryside.

Lit by the dying glow of an old oil lamp, I see Emily in the snow. It must have been falling all night. She's staring upwards into the sky as snow falls around her, swamped by an enormous overcoat that can't possibly be hers. The ground glows white with crisp, undisturbed snow, except where Emily's tiny feet have carved deep caverns that run from the door to where she's stood.

I clench my jaw, trying to stop myself from reaching for my shoes and coat and joining her outside. I'm unsuccessful, and before I really know what I'm doing, I'm already walking down the stairs towards the exit.

'Are you crazy?' is the question I project from the door as I open it, letting a blast of icy air howl through the reception room.

Emily's gaze snaps to mine. She looks momentarily bewildered at the abrupt disturbance of her peace, before she smiles ecstatically at me, and twirls around on the spot. 'Come out,' she orders me.

'Come in,' I counter.

She shakes her head.

I roll my eyes and step from the doorstep onto the ground. I immediately sink about half a meter into the snow, entirely covering my shoe and a good-sized portion of my leg. 'Fucking hell,' I observe as the vastness of the snow dawns on me. I shut the door behind me and plough ungainly through the snow towards Emily. Her nose and cheeks are fiery red.

'How long have you been out here?' I ask.

She shrugs. 'I couldn't sleep.'

'So you tried to induce hypothermia?'

She rolls her eyes with a smile. 'It's beautiful isn't it?' she asks me.

I look around. The sky is as dark as I've ever seen it, the ground eerily white, dark shapes of hills and trees and hedges outlined in thick layers of bright white. The air is so silent that I can almost hear the snow as it falls upon the ground. 'Yeah it's alright,' I suppose.

'Why can't you just admit it's lovely?'

'Because it's just snow Emily, I've seen it before,' I tell her. 'And as nice as it is it's stopping me from getting home,' I remind her.

She twists her mouth to the side. 'Yeah ... there's no way the airport's going to be running tomorrow,' she agrees.

I sigh and brush the snow from a car bonnet and sit down. Emily watches me before doing the same. The suspension bobs up and down as she sits next to me. We stare into the flame of the oil lamp that she's perched on the sill of a ground floor window.

'So what do you do with it?' I ask eventually, my breath steaming up into the night.

She looks at me with one confused eyebrow. 'With what?' she asks.

'Snow,' I say. 'If you love it so much. What does it do?'

Emily smiles at me like I'm an adorable idiot. 'It doesn't do anything. It just falls. Like the rest of us.'

'Right ...' I say, frowning for a second. 'Well ... aren't you gonna ... I don't know, build a fucking snow man or something?'

Emily laughs, 'Nah. I think they're creepy.'

'Have a snowball fight?'

'Would you fight me?'

'No ...' I say, 'I'd sit here and judge.'

'Thought as much.'

'So you just ... sit here and stare at it?' I ask.

She nods. 'When you love something sometimes that's all you can do,' she tells me, squinting skywards again. 'Dumbstruck ... you know?'

I keep quiet. I wonder if she's actually talking about snow.

'That or get drunk,' she adds, taking a hip flask out of the pocket of the gigantic coat.

I splutter a laugh.

'Want some?' she asks, offering the flask out to me.

'What is it?' I eye it sceptically.

'Dunno,' she admits, 'I found it in this coat.'

'Gross,' I observe. I pause. 'Give it here then.'

I unscrew the cap and bring it to my lips. The liquid stings my lips and burns the back of my throat. I cough and a numbing warmth seeps through me. 'Whiskey,' I say hoarsely, once I'm finished coughing and spluttering.

'Yeah I know,' she says with a grin as she takes the flask off me and takes a swig herself.

'Bitch,' I say with a smile.

She pulls an adorably disgusted face as she drinks the liquid. 'Man that's foul,' she notes, wiping her lips.

'So what are we going to do Em?' I ask after a few more swigs, the abbreviation of her name slipping from my lips before I have time to process it. 'How the hell are we going to get home?'

She swallows another mouthful and pulls another face before considering my question. 'Fuck knows,' she reasons. 'I figure it doesn't really matter. We may as well just enjoy the journey.'

I disagree. 'Doesn't look like there's even going to be a journey,' I say glumly, gesturing to the whiteness all around us.

She doesn't answer. Just stares at the snow again as she takes another big gulp from the flask. She hands it over to me and rests her hands either side of her on the car bonnet. Her left hand is millimetres away from my right hand. I glance down and see my freezing fingers next to hers. As I'm looking, her hand slides fractionally closer to mine, brushing up against my white-cold skin.

'Sorry,' she says, withdrawing her hand quickly at the contact. 'Jesus, your hands are fucking freezing,' she adds as an afterthought. Without asking, she takes the flask from me and rests it in her lap before collecting both my hands between hers and rubbing them vigorously. 'They're like ice,' she tells me, not looking up.

'Well what did you expect? I'm in the fucking tundra,' I say, staring at her as her hands move up and down mine.

She brings my hands up to her face and breaths hot air over my fingers, which inadvertently brush against her lips. I feel a strange clenching sensation in my stomach that I'm not familiar with. But I know it's got something to do with the way Emily is slowly generating warmth back into my body.

She stops rubbing. 'Better?' she asks, my hands still very close to her face.

'Yeah ... thanks,' I say, taking my hands back uncertainly. 'Think I'm going to go back inside,' I decide, hopping off the car bonnet into the shin-deep snow, feeling unsteady.

'Yeah ... my bum's a big block of ice,' she agrees.

Thinking about Emily's bum is not helping my current light-headedness, so I just smile awkwardly and walk to the door as briskly as the crippling snow will allow. Emily follows me.

Back upstairs, I feel like I've brought the cold with me inside the room. An iciness settles over us as we clamber back beneath the covers. I try to quiet my shivering as Emily turns the lamp off again, but she notices, turning towards me in the dark and resting a hand on my bare arm.

'Are you okay?' she asks me. I can just make out the shape of her face.

'I fine,' I lie. 'Just need to warm up.'

'Can I do anything?' she asks.

I shake my head. 'I just want to sleep,' I tell her, turning roughly away from her onto my side and moving as far into my side of the bed as I can.

I hear her sigh and settle down.

Eventually the pattern of her breathing evens and her subtle shuffling stops.

I lie awake in the dark.


End file.
